PD 360 Strategy of the Week

The Common Core Begins with Commitment
NOTE: These ideas fit within the scope of Teaching Standard I: Knowledge of Students & Student Learning.

One key element to making the Common Core Standards effective in the classroom is commitment to each student’s capacity to learn. A commitment to students and their learning begins with understanding how they learn and ensuring that knowledge is accessible to children of every learning style. Committing to students includes, but is not limited to:

Adjusting instruction through careful observations of the students as a class and as individuals
Helping students make contextual connections to prior knowledge
Foster character, respect, high self-esteem, motivation, and other positive qualities

All high-quality teachers come to know each student’s personality, and they help each student come to know his or her potential. As educator Barnett Berry so precisely puts it, “It’s not just about helping a child learn how to pass a test or know that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1942 and the like. It is really about developing the human spirit.”

As educators commit to the learning of their students, they build a strong foundation in the Common Core Standards and ensure a strong beginning to preparing every student for his or her future.